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# Re: wish lists

- Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 12:50:12 PDT
- From:
- cc: moo-cows@parc.xerox.com
- Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
- In-Reply-To: <5749.9607231911@dufftown.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk>

    On Tue, 23 Jul 1996 dg@dcs.st-and.ac.uk wrote:

    > Two things I'd like to see that would make coding much simpler and ehance the
    > OO features of the language are:
    >
    > a) allowing verbs to be called with the . operator instead of : operator,
    >    i.e. object.verb(args)

    Hmm... I don't really think this will simplify the MOO language. Two
    different operators ( : and . ) which do the same and at the same time one
    operator ( . ) which does two different things is not a good idea imho.

    > b) a mechanism for encapsulating property references.
    >
    > What I mean by (b) is probably easier to explain by example. In IdealMOO(tm),
    > there is the following piece of code:
    >
    > 	...
    > 	d.number = 5;
    > 	...
    >
    > Now, d happens to be a large display panel in the square. When the property
    > changes, the number on the front does too. This is done by encapsulating the
    > number property. When the above expression is executed by the server, instead
    > of merely setting the property it calls d:_set_number(5) instead.
    >
    > 	d:_set_number():
    > 		object.number = arg[1];
    > 		object.description = tostr("A display panel with a ",
    > 			object.number, " on the front.");
    > 		return;
    >
    > Likewise, reading d.number would instead return the result of d:_get_number(),
    > which wouldn't be defined in this case.

    I don't think this will simplify the MOO language either. It might be a nice
    tool for experienced MOO programmers though, but It is not trivial to
    implement. The MOO server must not let _set_number() call itself again,
    when it tries to set the property.

    The above example is of course easy to implement in the current language, by
    making a -c prop, and an verb to change it. At this moment I think it's best
    to keep the parser as simple as possible, to keep the language easy to
    learn, debug and comprehend.

    Sander

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- Re: wish lists

- From: dg@dcs.st-and.ac.uk

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